Abstract

The criteria for selecting the most favourable bid under an auction or other public procurement procedure are comparative and evaluative measure allowing for a reliable evaluation of business proposals from the viewpoint of expected economic advantages to the ordering authority. Considering the basic public contract award principles the selection criteria should be objectified, transparent, communicated in advance in individual procurement conditions indicating the weight of each one, as well as the operating mode with the use of a scoring method. Apart from the amount of a contractor offered price or another equivalent, of primary importance are potential costs, especially operating expenses, quality characteristics and other criteria relating to the object of procurement. The recently overused cheapest bid selection criterion favoured various kinds of pathological practices; in particular, the number of bids offering a grossly low price, subject to a limine rejection, was rapidly growing. That forced the Polish legislator to restrict, under new Art. 91.2a of the Public Procurement Act, permissibility of organizing an auction with the sole criterion of the lowest price. Therefore, there will be a rise in importance of non-price criteria, more broadly regulated by new EU directives, which give preference to cost and quality criteria, exceptionally allowing also for substantive criteria in case of certain services. Those solutions require urgent implementation in the Polish law.